


Full Circle

by Cockney_Cecilia



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Infidelity, Post-Season/Series 12, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 01:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16399076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cockney_Cecilia/pseuds/Cockney_Cecilia
Summary: Sometimes, if you run far enough, you might just find yourself back where you started.





	Full Circle

**Author's Note:**

> Something different for me - a much older Buffy in a (roughly) post season 12 world. 
> 
> Written for the Elysian Fields 12 years 12 seasons challenge, using prompt #6

As far as epic love stories go, you wouldn’t think threats of impending death would rank up there in top ways to meet your soulmate. But apparently, Cupid had a sense of humour. Because, looking back, death threats were _ exactly _ how Spike had wormed his way into her heart: inserting himself into her life like a needle into a vein.

 

They had danced and fought and insulted each other until she died, he fell head over heels and they both tumbled into bed. There had been fists, and fangs, and lots of near-staking. Oh, and a church organ. 

 

One lucky day for either of them, and things would have gone very differently. 

 

But it didn't, and so their lives played out as the powers intended. She saved the world. He saved the world. They saved the world together. Quite a lot, actually. First as enemies, then lovers, later as friends. And for the last few years as casual email buddies, living on opposite sides of the world.

 

Someone (possibly Dawn) had taught Spike how to send an e-card, and there had been one flashing in her inbox from him on Christmas morning a few days ago.  _ ‘Merry Crimbo, Slayer - Give my best to Brian. Spike _ .’ It had made her cry. It was so… impersonal.

 

She had blamed her tears on the onions in her mother’s stuffing recipe. Brian had laughed at the Slayer brought to her knees by a root vegetable and she had forced a smile, telling him not to share her secret.

 

Brian was a Demonologist with a warm smile and a reassuringly practical streak. They'd met not long after her second separation from Spike. Like her, he had been based in San Francisco, working with the police department. She had spotted his understated, clean-cut good looks on his first day, and he had made no secret of his attraction to her.

 

What followed next was wooing in a delightfully old-fashioned way. Coffee first, progressing to dinners and eventually meeting friends and family before she was quite certain what had happened. And then she had a key to his apartment, and then it was  _ their  _ apartment, and then there was a ring, and a dress, and a date.

 

Spike hadn’t been able to come to the Wedding: there had been some kind of disturbance in Germany that required his assistance. Buffy hadn’t known whether to be grateful or hurt at his absence. 

 

As she had danced with Xander under the stars at her reception he had joked that ‘did she know she could have had a daytime wedding with Brian’. Something must have shown on her face, because he had rushed to say he was only joking; that he knew she was a night-owl; that she looked beautiful veiled by moonlight.

 

Later he let slip that Spike’s German plans involved a certain young Slayer named Marielle, whom Buffy had never met but whom she immediately hated.  

 

Afterwards, Buffy threw herself into her life with her new husband, and drifted ever further from Spike. And then a couple of years later he moved to London full time and their phone calls became texts, then their texts became emails. 

 

Everything went unsaid. 

 

***

 

Buffy would concede that it hadn't been much of a marriage for the last couple of years. Just a shell of a thing, really, with precious little love or affection rattling around in it. A dried-out husk of a relationship that she clung to as much out of stubbornness as fear.

 

So when she had been asked to visit London to speak at a conference, she had instantly said yes. 

 

Brian hadn't said anything, just watched her pack with a guarded expression.

 

“Will you see Spike while you're in town?”

 

She had paused her folding a moment, carefully schooling her face into a bored expression. “Probably not. It's only three days. I don't even know if he'll be there.”

 

And he hadn't been. At least, he hadn't been at the conference. 

 

He also wasn't at the Council when she dropped in to see Andrew; the corridors remaining vampire-tinglies-free throughout the whole afternoon.

 

She forced down the disappointment that rolled like a wave through her stomach and headed out into the rain-slicked street. Winter in London was cold and depressing, the sky a brooding grey and the pavement a blur of hard-faced commuters. Buffy wound her scarf tighter around her neck and, when the drizzle became a full-on storm, ducked into the yellow-tinged warmth of a pub to avoid the deluge.

 

And there he was.

 

She knew instantly, the familiar shiver running down her back like a featherlight caress. Like the kisses he had so loved to plant along the bumps of her spine, ghosting his cool lips across her heated skin while she trembled beneath him.

 

Spike knew too, his head snapping around and his eyes finding hers the moment she pushed her way into the crowded room.

 

For a moment, time stood still.

 

She stared at him, a hand at her neck, scarf half-unwound. He stared back, a pint halfway to his mouth and a red-lipped girl's whispered words going unheard in his ear.

 

Buffy felt her heart thunder in her chest and watched as Spike's left eye twitched in time to its beat. Slowly, he put the pint down. Haltingly, she untangled her scarf and plucked at the zip of her coat with shaking fingers.

 

Her hair was plastered to her head, lank tendrils curling down her face and sticking to her cheeks. She was certain her nose was red. For a fraction of a second she remembered the lines that were starting to crease her face when she laughed, the three extra inches on her waist, just  _ how many _ years it had been.

 

And then Spike walked towards her, and she forgot everything except the mesmerising way he moved. 

 

They met in the middle of the room, the hubbub of Friday evening drinkers a distant background. He stopped just a fraction too close to her, his presence a physical thing that pressed into her chest and caused her breath to hitch.

 

Spike looked the same. He always did. The same unlined skin, the same too-blue eyes, the same youthful glow that shone even through the pallor of death. 

 

“Buffy.” He breathed her name like a convert might utter the name of God.

 

“Spike.” She murmured his like a criminal confessing their sins.

 

“Why are you- what are you doing here?”

 

She fidgeted on the spot, hands twisting. “Work trip. Kind of a last minute thing.”

 

“Right.” 

 

She watched him cast about for words, the uncertainty in his expression causing her heart to twist. 

 

“So, uh, have a good Christmas, then?”

 

“Oh, yeah. It was… fine.”

 

“Brian doing ok?”

 

“Uh, sure. He's good.”

 

“Well, that's… good.”

 

The insincerity in his voice sent a thrill through her: a delicious, malicious, illicit thrill that jerked her hand upwards to sweep her hair away from the curve of her neck and poked her dark pink tongue out to moisten her lips.

 

“I think Brian and I are finished. As good as, anyway.”

 

He blinked at her words, momentarily stunned. “Jesus, Buffy. I'm sorry.”

 

“I'm not.” As the words escaped her, she realised the truth of them.

 

Spike ran a hand through his hair. “Well, fuck.” 

 

“I- all right. Yes.”

 

His eyes went wide, and then he frowned, a look that mingled concern with shock and just the faintest undercurrent of desire, that sent her pulse racing.

 

“Not sure I follow, luv.”

 

Buffy stepped close enough to press herself against him, the intoxicating, masculine smell of him forcing out any lingering doubts. She leant close enough to whisper in his ear, her lips a shimmering millimetre away from his skin. “Fuck me, Spike. Take me somewhere and fuck me.”

 

He closed his eyes. His nostrils flared. She felt every muscle in his body tighten where she leaned back into him.

 

“Buffy…”

 

“ _ Please _ , Spike.”

 

“I- bloody hell, woman. Do you know what you're… fuck. You're  _ married _ , Buffy. You've all but bloody ignored me for a decade. I haven't seen you for almost six years and now I run into you and you're asking-  _ fuck. _ ”

 

“I-  _ god _ , Spike. I want you. You  _ know  _ I want you. I  _ always  _ want you. And for the first time in forever I finally feel like I can finally- don't you want me?” Her eyes flickered back to Spike's spot at the bar, to the young brunette who was eyeing her suspiciously, a hand curled possessively around his abandoned pint. For the first time since she had stared into his familiar eyes Buffy felt doubt fog her desire. “Have you- is there someone special? Is that why…”

 

His hand shot put, a vice-like grip on her wrist tugging her even closer to him. “Never. Not like you.”

 

“Me neither. Nobody.”

 

He let out a barking laugh. “Could have fooled me, pet. Kinda figured the vows marked Brian out as a little bit special.” 

 

_ ‘Till death us do part.’ _

 

And here he was, death, ready and waiting to finally part her from her husband.

 

It was fitting. And morbidly funny. She snorted, the hand not immobilised by his hold coming up to grasp the back of his neck, toying with the curls she found there. “Brian was a mistake.”

 

“You can’t just- are you sure  _ I'm  _ not going to be the mistake?” The unspoken 'again’ hung between them.

 

“Never.” Buffy closed the gap between their mouths, her fingers tightening in his hair as she smashed her lips against his.

 

For a moment Spike froze, as still and cold as a statue. It was like kissing marble, hard and chilly and unyielding against her probing. And then with a groan he relented, melting against her mouth as his arms wrapped around her body to drag her tightly against him.

 

The world ceased to exist. The other patrons fading away into so much blank space, their chatter drowned out by the filthy slide of his mouth, the harsh pants of his unneeded breath as he grappled with her. Buffy moaned into his mouth and yielded control completely, revelling in the bruising strength of his grip and the intrusive thrust of his tongue.

 

She wanted to jump into his arms, to wrap her legs around his waist and mould herself against him like it had been ten minutes, not ten years. She probably would have done, if a group of drunken men hadn't started wolf-whistling and cat-calling in their direction, obscenities turning the air blue.

 

“Let's get out of here.”

 

He blinked at her, “God, the things you do to me…” Then a slow and predatory smile appeared, turning Buffy's knees weak. “All right, I know a place.”

 

***

 

Spike insisted on opening the window for a cigarette, leaning out into the night and blowing twisting plumes of smoke up towards the stars.

 

A human man would have been shivering in seconds, his skin marred by goose pimples. But Spike didn't notice the biting wind, the threat of snow that hung heavy in the air. His skin remained smooth and unblemished, his undead flesh impervious to the harshness of the weather.

 

Buffy snuggled deeper under the duvet and watched him, admiring the way the muscles in his back undulated as he stretched. Muscles that had, only minutes before, been taunt and alive under her hands.

 

“What's going on in that head of yours, Buffy?” He hadn't turned around, hadn't moved from his place at the window. His words were muffled by the wind, distorted as though he were speaking to her from a great distance.

 

“I was thinking that this is meant to be the part where I run out of the door, virtue all aflutter.”

 

His laugh was tinged with bitterness. “Back there again, are we?”

 

“You think we're back at the arguing about the laundry stage?”

 

“No, luv,” he sighed, flicking away the butt of his cigarette and watching it tumble the three floors to the alley below, “I think this is an exciting new stage called, ‘Buffy's mid-life crisis and the vampire too stupid to resist her.  _ Again _ ’.”

 

That stung a little. “It's  _ not-  _ I am  _ not  _ having a mid-life crisis.” 

 

“Could've fooled me. Left your husband all oblivious in the marital bed to come make the beast with two backs with me.”

 

Guilt wound through her post-coital glow like a tarnished thread. “My marriage is over. Or as good as. I've tried, Spike. For _ten_ _years_ I've tried. I'm done. Whatever there was between Brian and me… it's dead, finished.”

 

“He know that?”

 

“He knew I'd come and find you.”

 

“Poor bugger.”

 

Poor bugger; cuckold wanker; pathetic excuse for a man: Buffy heard all manner of considerations and condemnations in Spike's words.

 

“I lost a baby.”

 

Her midnight confession hung suspended in the air between them, a thick drop of oil in the watery swell of their conversation.

 

Spike immediately turned around, his eyes reflecting a hurt Buffy had walled off from her heart. “Shit. I know how much you… god, pet, I'm sorry.”

 

“Two years ago, now. It- I was only a few weeks. It's fine, really. But since then...”

 

He was at her side in a moment, his cold body sliding under the covers and along her warmth until he was pulling her into the circle of his arms. “'S not fine, Buffy. Bloody unfair thing to happen.”

 

“It was my fault.”

 

“He said that to you?!” Anger coloured Spikes words, his expression murderous. “Unworthy tosser-”

 

“No. It really  _ was  _ my fault.”

 

Only a vampire could have heard her whispered confession; only Spike could known to trace maddening loops on her stomach with his fingertips and not say a word. 

 

“I went patrolling. There was this demon… it was just one punch, but that was enough…”

 

He pulled her across him, tucking her head into the crook of his neck and resting his chin on her hair. “That's not your fault, sweetheart. You couldn't have known.”

 

“I should have stayed at home. Should never have- I know Brian thinks the same, deep down. He would never admit it, but…” She realised with a growing sense of horror that she was crying, great fat tears slipping silently down her cheeks and pooling in the hollow of Spike's collarbone.

 

He hushed her gently, petting her hair with a gentle hand and whispering soothing words. It felt… it felt like coming home. And so Buffy drew in breath after shuddering breath and clung to him, nails digging into his side as she wept for the family she would never have, and the marriage that she had never really wanted.

 

Eventually, when she was rung dry of tears, she ducked under the covers and peppered his body with kisses; tracing long remembered scars and mapping his body to her memories.

 

***

 

“How old was your mother when she had you?”

 

“You what, pet?” Spike raised a curious eyebrow at her as he handed over the steaming coffee, the chipped mug deliciously warm in her cold hands.

 

Buffy blew on the hot liquid before taking a scalding gulp. Two sugars, a dribble of cream:  he remembered. “Your mom. She was, what, twenty when she had you?”

 

“Eighteen. Girls got married young back then. And what's my mum have to do with anything?”

 

_ Eighteen _ . “And you were twenty-eight when you were turned?”

 

“You  _ know  _ that. What's this all about, Slayer?” The suspicion in his voice said clearly that he didn’t think that whatever it was was good for him.

 

He was right.

 

“Oh my _ god _ . I'm practically the same age she was when she died. In a couple of years I could be your  _ mother _ .”

 

He looked at her like she was mad.

 

“And oh!” She put her face in her hands, “what did those people  _ think _ in the bar last night. A woman in her forties throwing herself at a young guy like that. Like a, a- some kind of  _ cougar _ or something.”

 

He sat down heavy on the mattress, his firm and very naked buttocks pressing against her side through the sheets. His hand skimmed along her ribs until he grazed the side of her breast. “Bloody ridiculous is what you are. And I'm near enough a hundred and sodding fifty.  _ Cougar _ indeed.” He snorted.

 

She peeked at him through the lattice work of her fingers. “But you don't  _ look _ one hundred and fifty.”

 

“And  _ you _ don't look like my bloody mother, okay?” His hand slid around her breast until he was cupping its weight in his palm. “Don't feel like my mother, either.”

 

“Pervert.”

 

He walked his fingers across her breastbone and slowly ran the tips of his fingers across the globe of her other breast. “You love it, Mrs Robinson.”

 

She gasped, feigning offence while letting the sheet slide down her stomach. 

 

His eyes followed its path.

 

“Bad, wicked young man.”

 

“Vampire, luv.”

 

Buffy flicked her hair away from her neck and stroked a finger down her throat. “I remember.”

 

***

 

Buffy slid out of the bed, landing on the balls of her feet and creeping quietly across the floorboards towards the bathroom. The statue-like figure in the bed didn't move, not even to take a breath. Spike had finally fallen asleep in the small hours, just as the first pastel green wisps of dawn chalked across the inky sky. 

 

His loft was huge, large enough that the sun that spilt through the floor to ceiling windows only reached halfway across the floor, leaving his bed, sofa and unused run of kitchen units in perpetual shadow. She had rolled her eyes that first morning she sat in bed with him, watching nervously as the golden rays crept closer and closer. 

 

Beautiful death, just a hair's breadth away.

 

Spike twisted in his sleep, throwing off the covers to expose the sculpted musculature of his his back.

 

Yes, perhaps they were both half in love with it.

  
  


***

 

“Don't go.”

 

“I have to.”

 

“Why? You're leaving him. What more is there to say?”

 

Buffy closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. “I can't… some things are better in person.”

 

Spike raised an eyebrow, his hand still hovering possessively over her bag. 

 

“Ten years… I owe him that much.”

 

“Thought he knew it was over.”

 

She looked away.

 

“Fuck, Buffy. Just, please, don't go.” _ Stay with me. _

 

“I have to.” Duty. Responsibility. Work. So many threads to unpick that she felt dizzy.

 

His face snapped shut. “Fine.”

 

“Spike…”

 

“See you in another decade, yeah?”

 

“I'll come back.”

 

“Whatever, Slayer. Just, do me a favour - next time pick another vamp when you've got an itch to scratch.”

 

“Don't do this.”

 

“ _ I'm  _ not doing anything, sweetheart. This is all on you.”

 

She bent down. Picked up the bag. Brushed past his twitching fingers.

 

“Buffy…”

 

She opened the door.

 

***

 

147 days. That was how long she had been gone. How long it had taken to dismantle her life, piece by piece. To work her notice. To start divorce proceedings. To move out and put the flat on the market.

 

Well, she probably could have booked a flight for last week, but there was something about the symbolism… she thought Spike would appreciate it.

 

If he ever opened the door, that was.

 

“Come on, come  _ on. _ ”

 

Perhaps she should have called him.

 

At first she had been mad: that he thought she was using him (again); that she was leaving him (again). Then she had been upset: that she had wasted ten years of her life with Brian; that nothing had turned out as it should have. And later… later she was just scared. Scared that he would tell her she wasn't worth another go. (And they had had oh so many other goes already.)

 

Although, in hindsight, perhaps just turning up at his door with her suitcase wasn't the best way to deal with her fear.

 

_ Answer the door, Spike. Answer it. _

 

“This better be bloody important!”

 

The sound of the lock sent a wave of panic through her, rooting her to the spot. 

 

The heavy steel swung open, and there he was. Spike: in all his tousled-haired, bare-chested glory. He stared at her, slack jawed.

 

“ _ Buffy _ ?”

 

She swallowed.

 

“Hi.”

 

“What the… You're  _ here _ .”

 

“I told you I would come back.”

 

He ran a hand across his face and through his hair. “Fuck.  _ Fuck _ . You actually… fuck.”

 

She grinned, suddenly feeling twenty again. “God, Spike, monosyllabic much?”

 

He recovered from his shock quickly and leaned against the doorframe, his eyes raking over her body. “Look at you, all grown up with the big words and the romantic gestures.” 

 

Everything clicked into place, and a decade crumbled. She grinned and rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up and kiss me already.”

 

A smile lit across his face and his arm sneaked out to grab her by the waist, pulling her to him in a flash. 

 

She shrieked a delighted shriek that ended in a breathless giggle as she stared at his mouth, inches from her own.

 

In a low, insistent voice he demanded, “Tell me this is real.”

 

“It's real. I’m divorcing Brian. I quit my job. Sold the flat.”

 

He slammed her against the wall and kissed her. A fierce, possessive kiss that sucked the air from her lungs and burnt with its intensity.

 

Too soon he pulled away, leaving her panting.

 

“What's with the stopping?”

 

He pushed the door fully open, a hand on the small of her back as he urged her through and into the dark apartment beyond. “Wanna do this inside.”

 

“Back to your place, is it?” She breathed, “ _ Very _ presumptuous.”

 

“Not my place, luv,” He pushed the door to and caught her with a sweet, chaste peck on the mouth that tingled straight down her spine, “ _ our _ place. Welcome home, Buffy.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


 


End file.
